The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is prohibiting federal agencies from issuing new awards or solicitations for laptop or desktop computers and directing them to limit those types of purchases to governmentwide contracting vehicles.

The new policy was announced Friday (Oct. 16, 2015) by federal Chief Information Officer Tony Scott and Administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) Anne Rung.

For years, agencies have purchased basic IT equipment, such as laptops and desktops, using thousands of contracts and delivery orders “resulting in reduced buying power, duplication of contracts and little transparency into the prices that agencies were paying for similar computers,” Scott and Rung said in a post on the OMB blog. (A recent inspector general review, for instance, reported one agency paid 42 different prices for the same desktop model in 2012.)

Agency efforts to support private entrepreneurs are ineffectual and fragmented, according to Government Accountability Office research on 52 programs in such departments as Agriculture, Commerce and Housing and Urban Development.

In a paper dated Aug. 23, auditors identified overlap among initiatives to offer grants, loans and technical training to businesses and found that too few agencies track the assistance they provide, resulting in a failure of 19 programs to meet performance goals.

The report said Agriculture and the Small Business Administration, for instance, “entered into a formal agreement in 2010 to coordinate their efforts to support businesses in rural areas; however, the agencies’ programs that can support startup businesses — such as USDA’s Rural Business Enterprise Grant program and SBA’s Small Business Development Centers — have yet to determine roles and responsibilities, find ways to leverage each other’s resources, or establish compatible policies and procedures.”